Do anteaters eat fire ants, or are the fire ants too aggressive?

Question

Do anteaters eat fire ants, or are the fire ants too aggressive?

Answer 1

Yes, according to the following website, they do eat them, (assuming you mean the types of anteaters you get in America, not the ones we get in Australia). I'm sure our Aussie anteaters/echidnas would freak out and run a mile if they got a mouthful of fire ants, since they aren't used to them.

From the website:- "Anteaters disturb and feed on large numbers of nests in their home ranges, as observed in South America (Montgomery 1985a, 1985b). In North America, Breece and Dusi (1985) found almost all of the fire ant mounds during their study had been disturbed by long-nosed armadillos."

The website gives a whole lot of critters that eat fire ants. It's surprising (to me, anyway) how many animals do eat them besides anteaters and armadillos, including birds and many types of insects.

Here's the site:

http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~gilbert/resear...